American Politics and Society

The Political Ends of Endless Cruelty

The search for rational answers to rational questions begins to fade to black.

Say what you want about the leaders of the Grand Ol’ Party, they aren’t stupid. Sure, they may act like stupid, angry people on TV (Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Bobbert, Ted Cruz et.al.) but that’s because it plays well with people who are actually stupid and angry. Those people are where the votes are. That’s your sweet spot.

The trappings of democracy remain in place in the US, so the Republicans still have to figure out ways to get people to vote for them. However, their traditional demographic base is shrinking, they are devoid of any policies or plans or platforms that will improve the life of the average American, and it seems that there aren’t yet enough oligarchs and corporations with deep enough pockets to make it happen, regardless of how much money they are willing to throw around to have it their way,

The question Republicans have been grappling with for decades has been, “How do we get voters to vote against their own economic interests and in favour of a party that clearly, surely, demonstrably, repeatedly, obviously has no interest in working towards an improvement in their standard of living?”

But the need to troll for votes will only be necessary as long as there are still functioning democratic institutions instead of merely the appearance of them. Once it becomes clear that the whole thing is a Potemkin village, then all bets are off.

It’s complex, and yet quite simple. However, lest we conclude that the architects of the Republican party are mining a seam of genius, it’s important to remember that they are only copying from the same playbook that authoritarians, whether to the far left or the far right of the spectrum, have been using for centuries.

The key word here is cruelty. Violence might be another.

Republicans know that these words are both facts of life that are baked right into American society. They always have been from the start, in ways that most western, modern, industrialised, liberal democracies don’t have to deal with on a daily basis. It is a part of American life that is accepted now, almost as though it is part of the furniture.

Still need proof? Since the mass murder at the hands of the National Rifle Association and their Republican employees / congresspeople in Uvalde on May 24, there have have been 20 more of these…events. Today is June 1 and in those 20 shootings, 21 people have been killed and 80 injured. It has been just over 2 weeks since 10 people were murdered in a Buffalo supermarket and there have been no fewer than 39 mass shootings since. By the time this article is published, there will likely be another. And by the time you are reading it, another.

But between the callous indifference of the gun lobby who had the unmitigated gall to continue with their convention last weekend in the same state where 19 kids were killed at school and the criminal and immoral indifference of politicians, there are scant words in the media about 34 of the 36 violent outrages that I mention here.

Any one of these would initiate a serious national conversation in most other western countries.

Why don’t they? Because it’s America. Violence and cruelty are just a part of the cost of doing business. For some to win, some will have to lose. That’s the deal.

Why does this state of affairs persist when the majority of the American citizenry favours various degrees of measures to, if not curb gun ownership, then to mitigate the very real possibility that they too will end up as a statistic? Who benefits from this? Who suffers? And why is there no end in sight to their suffering? What has happened to a society in which the very reasonable and rational assertion of “my right to exist in safety and security of person comes ahead of your right to own a weapon of mass destruction” has fallen to the wayside?

It comes down to a violent mix of many facets that are engrained in American society. That these are all happening by the same time is not by accident. Rather, it is a perfect storm coordinated and planned to increasing perfection by a political party whose increasingly Fascist adjacent leadership knows no bounds to their greed and filthy lust for power:

Conditioning people to accept a certain level of violence, cruelty, lawlessness and disorder that “only they can fix”. Hitler said it in 1933. Hell, Trump said it too in 2016 at his inauguration, the unoriginal asshole that he never misses an opportunity to be.

The importance of keeping the machines of capitalism greased (and pockets lined) by devising issues that keep people competing with each other and at each other’s throats. The business of culture wars and cancel culture is an invention designed to distract people if and when they start to get funny ideas about rejecting the capitalist system that enslaves them. The Great Replacement “theory” is one of the best examples I know of this.

Making every issue a political one, left vs right. Covid, climate change, war in Ukraine, women’s reproductive rights, gender orientation, gun control, education, health care.

Keeping people in a constant state of fear, imbalance and dis-ease if they don’t toe the line and keep their hamster wheels spinning. If you lose your job, you lose your health care and you lose your belief in the American Dream. So you better keep working in that job that destroys your soul.

Causing people to question authority, science, intellect, history, reason, logic, rationality, learning and above all truth when it doesn’t fit with their agenda. There are alternative facts for everything.

Blaming mental illness for any and all inexplicable tragedies. As if there wasn’t already enough stigma around it. And as if they would ever support any spending measures to enhance mental health. People should be able to figure out that stuff for themselves without relying on government handouts.

Promoting violence as an acceptable method for the redressing of grievances. We need look no further than the failed Trump coup of January 6, 2021 and the recalcitrance of any Republicans to get involved in finding out the truth.

An acceptance that life is struggle for the many, and luxury for the few, while the belief remains that the many can join the few and if they can’t or don’t, then it’s their own fault and they should not expect any help from the government in getting there.

Demonizing anyone who disagrees. There was a modicum of respect. Now it’s my party’s turn to govern, eventually it will be yours. You guys will get your turn, that’s how it works. Now it’s about eliminating their ability to get elected at all. And if that doesn’t work, calling them socialists or communists — long been the dirtiest of words in the US — with no understanding of what they mean or how socialist / capitalist societies have been successfully built in Canada and Europe. Or worse, when those words don’t work, resort to calling opponents pedos or groomers.

The use of race, gender, orientation, age, physical ability to divide people and keep them in their place the way that class used to be relied on to do.

No longer even attempting to hide their misdirection of the narrative. School doors? He’s a bought and paid for employee of the NRA, Ted Cruz and his doors. Everyone knows it. And now he wants to throw the police under the bus. What? How can this be their fault?

Making sure that people understand that if they aren’t careful, they could just as easily slip down into the situation of the people on the rung below them: without health care and dying painfully, or living in a tent in the park, or deported back to where they came from.

Using peoples’ ignorance to convince them that immigrants and “the others” are the problem is a ruse as old as time. Who perpetrates it? Who benefits from it?

Making use of a broken education system. Inculcation into the myths of a country based on an imagined history and leaving young people to become adults who are uninitiated into critical thinking enables the spread of conspiracies. And then using these issues to get people to vote against their own best interests.

Making use of a broken society. When the systems that people rely on begin to fail them,they can be made to accept a decrease of freedoms in exchange for a perceived increase in order and security. People can be made to turn on each other.

The main goal that drives everything else would seem to be to keep people living in a constant state of fear and to keep people in competition with each other (and if necessary, at each other’s throats). This benefits both the aspirations and the continued unfettered access to wealth, of many, if not most, politicians. It also furthers the capitalist system in the face of all current clarion calls that we must take immediate action or face an imminent global reckoning.

These are the kind of people who can dismiss the predictions of climate science, but have no problem looking ahead 5, 10, 20 years when it comes to their own grip on power and making use of the people that will get them there and keep them there.

I will say in closing, that, if it’s not obvious, I am not American. I do not wish for America’s demise, as many around the world might. I have been around many parts of that same world and know enough to know that if America goes down, the shockwaves will likely overturn many of our boats.

It is historical fact based on example after example that all empires eventually collapse. Some have a long decline, some disappear overnight. Either way, surely the people won’t accept being held hostage by a criminal cabal much longer.

For quick(er) read about an imagined conversation within the walls of the terrorist organization known as the National Rifle Association, see here:

And a little bit of Tucker Carlson’s bullshit to finish us off:

I really do hope that you like what you have just read. If you want unlimited access to thousands of writers, consider a subscription to Medium. It will set you back $5 a month and if you use this link, then I get a slice of that. I promise to write a happier article next.